Act 4, Scene 1

A room in the Castle.

[Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]
King Claudius
2529 There's matter in these sighs. These profound heaves
2530 You must translate: 'tis fit we understand them.
2531 Where is your son?
Queen Gertrude
2532 Bestow this place on us a little while.
[To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who go out.]
Queen Gertrude
2533 Ah, my good lord, what have I seen to-night!
King Claudius
2534 What, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?
Queen Gertrude
2535 Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
2536 Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit
2537 Behind the arras hearing something stir,
2538 Whips out his rapier, cries 'A rat, a rat!'
2539 And in this brainish apprehension, kills
2540 The unseen good old man.
King Claudius
2541 O heavy deed!
2542 It had been so with us, had we been there:
2543 His liberty is full of threats to all;
2544 To you yourself, to us, to every one.
2545 Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answer'd?
2546 It will be laid to us, whose providence
2547 Should have kept short, restrain'd, and out of haunt
2548 This mad young man. But so much was our love
2549 We would not understand what was most fit;
2550 But, like the owner of a foul disease,
2551 To keep it from divulging, let it feed
2552 Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?
Queen Gertrude
2553 To draw apart the body he hath kill'd:
2554 O'er whom his very madness, like some ore
2555 Among a mineral of metals base,
2556 Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.
King Claudius
2557 O Gertrude, come away!
2558 The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch
2559 But we will ship him hence: and this vile deed
2560 We must with all our majesty and skill
2561 Both countenance and excuse.—Ho, Guildenstern!
[Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]
King Claudius
2562 Friends both, go join you with some further aid:
2563 Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,
2564 And from his mother's closet hath he dragg'd him:
2565 Go seek him out; speak fair, and bring the body
2566 Into the chapel. I pray you, haste in this.
[Exeunt Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]
King Claudius
2567 Come, Gertrude, we'll call up our wisest friends;
2568 And let them know both what we mean to do
2569 And what's untimely done: so haply slander,—
2570 Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter,
2571 As level as the cannon to his blank,
2572 Transports his poison'd shot,—may miss our name,
2573 And hit the woundless air.—O, come away!
2574 My soul is full of discord and dismay.
[Exeunt.]

Reading mode

Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 2529archaic vocab
“profound heaves”
Heaves here means heavy sighs or groaning breaths, not vomiting. Claudius sees that Gertrude's sighing carries serious news and demands she put it into words — 'translate' it for him.
TLN 2539archaic vocab
“brainish apprehension”
'Brainish' means frenzied, brain-sick (the word predates the play and is not a Shakespearean coinage). 'Apprehension' here means a seizure of imagination or delusion, not arrest or understanding. Together: 'frenzied delusion.' Gertrude is framing the killing as pure madness, not intent.
TLN 2546archaic vocab
“providence”
Providence here means practical foresight and prudent management — a king's duty to anticipate danger — not divine care or fate (its more familiar religious sense). Claudius is saying his job was to foresee and control Hamlet, and he failed it. The word is doing political, not theological, work.
TLN 2547archaic vocab
“out of haunt”
Haunt means a place frequently visited, especially a gathering place — here the royal court. 'Out of haunt' means removed from public circulation, kept away from society. Claudius is saying Hamlet should have been kept confined, not left free to roam the court.
TLN 2550rhetorical device
“like the owner of a foul disease, To keep it from divulging, let it feed Even on the pith of life”
Claudius compares himself to a patient who hides a serious illness rather than treating it — and so lets it devour his vital core ('pith of life' = the marrow, the living heart of the body). The simile is darkly ironic: Hamlet is the 'disease,' but Claudius himself is the original corruption rotting Denmark from within. 'Pith' means marrow or essential substance (archaic).
TLN 2554archaic vocab
“like some ore Among a mineral of metals base”
'Mineral' here means a mine or a vein of ore — not the modern chemistry term. Gertrude compares Hamlet's grief amid madness to a vein of pure gold running through rock full of base (worthless) metals. Even inside his breakdown, she argues, something genuine and good shows through.
TLN 2561archaic vocab
“countenance and excuse”
'Countenance' means to publicly sanction or put an official face on something — not merely to endure it. Claudius intends to use the full weight of royal authority both to give the killing an official story ('countenance') and to justify it ('excuse'). The pairing exposes his spin-control instinct: manage the optics first.
TLN 2571archaic vocab
“level as the cannon to his blank”
'Blank' is the white center of an archery or gunnery target — what the cannon is aimed directly at. 'Level as the cannon to his blank' means aimed point-blank, with no possibility of missing. Claudius pictures slander flying straight and true across the whole world ('diameter') to hit his reputation. The gunnery image stresses the precision and inevitability of the threat.